it's only the weight of your veins
by xshedreamsinredx
Summary: Zeus/Hera. Listen closely, this is how it starts.


Rated T for the general idea of incest in Greek Mythology and mentions of rape as per the myth of Hera and Zeus.

**It's only the weight of your veins**

"_You're made of my rib or you're made of my sin?  
Because I can't tell where your lust ends  
And where your love begins."  
_- VAST

**01.**

There was a time, when she had been young and magic. She had dreamt in shades of red and gold, spun facts into myths from the top of her head. She had played on the shoreline despite her mother consistent warnings, had walked barefooted in the fields of tall grass, always in a hurry to slip past her mother's watchful stare.

_Have a care, Hera. Someone might see you._

She should have paid heed to her mother's warning then. Because in an entirely miscalculated turn of events, he does.

**02.**

"Who are you?" She had been uneasy and scared and wishing to slip away from the stranger with the bluest pair of eyes she had ever seen. There was nothing familiar about him, making her certain he was the very kind of man her mother had cautioned her against day after day.

"My mother is looking for me." Her lips had trembled as she had forced herself to choke out the lie; the barest hint of wind had brushed into her gold spun hair, making it come undone. The sky had darkened considerably for it to be morning but it hadn't deterred the stranger in the slightest.

If anything, he had grown more self-assured than before. He had cocked his head, quirked an eyebrow at her in a manner that made her feel foolish. "And yet I do not see you running away to find her."

Her eyebrows had knitted in confusion, unable to grasp his implication. "I am just making sure you are aware."

He had taken a step towards her then. It had made her feel unsettled. "Now that I am, why do you not answer my previous question?"

She turned to walk away from him. "Hera."

"I am Zeus."

She did not even bother to look back to acknowledge his statement. "I never asked to know you or your name."

As she made her way back to her Rhea, she swore she could hear the clouds rumble with his laughter.

**03.**

In the following days, Zeus of blue, blue eyes started turning up everywhere she went.

"Why do you insist on following me?" She had asked him one day, eyes stubbornly trained on her hands, she was busy plucking the petals of a daisy.

"Because you do not leave me any other option." His tone had been a quite inclination of something close to frustration.

"Will you continue to do so even after I marry someone else?" She had looked up then to find the slightest trace of rage simmering in his blue, blue eyes.

"Not if I can help it." He had answered in a voice that ran nothing short of finality.

"I am thankful," she had felt gratified, "I thought I would have to deal with you even after-"

"No, Hera," he had cut her off abruptly, a distant look shaping the blue of his eyes, "you misunderstood me. What I meant is that you will not marry someone else if I can help it."

The daisy glided past her fingers, her eyes widened in aghast, she opened her mouth and shut it again when no words formed. Zeus continued to stare at her with something she could no longer hope to define but it frightened her all the same.

"I care for you, Hera."

"But, you do nott understand," the words that tumbled out of her mouth were a product of desperation and frenzy, "you are already married and I am already being pursued by suitors and there is a man by the name of-"

"Enough," Zeus demanded. "I will not hear you speak of such foolishness."

"I think I might care for him. I-"

The sky was teeming with murky, gloomy clouds that ricocheted with thunder. She could see flashes of lightening cutting through the darkened plume and felt panic branch out under her veins.

Zeus stepped close to her, repeating the very words that had put her on edge. "I care for you."

"Then you must let me go." She reasoned.

"I am sorry," for his part, Zeus did look sorry, his eyes seemed sad for a fleeting moment, "I cannot allow that to happen."

She opened her mouth again to contradict him, was silenced.

**04.**

She had stopped going out following the incident.

Rhea had looked at her worriedly on more than one occasion and attempted to deduce the cause of the sudden change in her behaviour. _If something terrible has befallen you, Hera. You must tell me. _

Hera had always shaken her head in response, never entirely sure if the loss of her first kiss was worth mourning over. _Nothing, mother._

At times, she had looked up to the sky, which had not cleared since that unfortunate day, and wondered if Zeus was seeking her out. At times, she had pressed her fingers against her lips and forced herself to forget the lingering memory of his fingers ghosting against her skin. He had not needed permission to take what he wanted and that was the very part of him that scared her the most.

_Zeus is not good with patience. _

It was a nagging and chilling thought but mostly because it rang true.

**05.**

It happened when she was least expecting.

It had been raining and she had been running late. Her mother was waiting for her to return home but fate had not been on her side that day. She was too simple-minded and naïve and had a blinding need to fix everything broken.

The cuckoo bird had crashed to the ground in front of her and she had rushed over to lift it up from the ground. Paying not even the slightest thought to her drenched robes, she had held it against her breast to provide the required warmth and that is where she went wrong. One minute, she was clutching the bird desperately against her chest in hopes of its revival and the very next; she was being hoisted to the sky by some unforeseen force, the bird no longer in her arms.

Zeus stood in front of her, his face a carefully constructed mask of indifference. "I have been searching for you, Hera."

She looked away from him, cheeks darkening due to the improper condition of her clothes. She swiftly swept her long, golden locks over her shoulder to cover her chest; it afforded her a sense of decency. "What is the meaning of this?"

Zeus loomed over her frame. His fingers reached out to grip her chin firmly, forcing her to turn towards him. "I will have you as my bride."

"I will not consent to it." Her body trembled in contrast to her resolute words; it did not escape his notice.

"I know," he came closer to her, dropping his fingers from her chin to allow them to ghost down the skin left exposed through her damp toga. "But thankfully I am willing to improvise."

"Zeus." Tears formed in her eyes, she shuddered against the insistent poking and prodding of his fingertips. Her voice was shaky when she spoke again. "Please don't."

It really was quite a shame that Zeus had a habit of listening to no one other than himself.

**06.**

By the end of it, she was ruined and disgraced.

Her mother had rushed to her side the minute the word had reached her. She spoke of him in terms she was unfamiliar with. A son who had helped them escape Cronus, a progeny who she had loved more than the others, a brother who had remained estranged from the rest of them for the longest time.

"He insulted me," she cried in protest against her mother's kind wordings, "he took my virtue and destroyed it when he should have protected it as my brother."

Rhea hushed her gently, pressing a wet cloth to her sore wounds. Hera may be a goddess but Zeus was the king of gods. He had not been gentle with handling her. "It is a common means of coercion, had you accepted his proposal in the first place it would not have come to this."

There was hardly an inch of her skin he had left unmarked. "Zeus never lays down a proposal, he lays down demands and I refuse to fulfil them."

"But you will, daughter," Rhea chided her. "You are a woman. A goddess, but a woman nonetheless and no woman can live through such a great dishonour. You will wed, Zeus, cast no doubts about that. You will wed him, become his queen consort and rule Olympus with him."

She was back to the verge of crying again. Swallowing the bitter taste her mother's words had left in her mouth, she stifled the hysteria to give way to rationale and continued in a voice that was one-part desperate and two parts frenetic. "But I will never love him. I will never let myself love him.

Rhea smiled a sad, broken smile, pressing her lips against her forehead. "That you may not. But you will survive because that is what women do. We survive."

And survive, Hera does, through centuries to come and go.

**-X-**

**A/n: **Well, let me know what you think of it. Leave me some prompts if you want. A lyric, a quote or a word and I may continue this or write something new centring on the prompt.


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